Ether and Wood
by alysrose
Summary: I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl, she had once told him. Daryl hadn't wanted to admit it but that had been true. But when the gunshot rang out and her lifeless body crashed to the floor, he knew he had failed Beth in every way. He would forever have her blood on his hands until his dying day. [Bethyl]


CHAPTER ONE

..

She wasn't sure how long she laid there for, but time didn't seem to matter anymore.

Not in the same way it used to. Every single person she knew before was always so focussed on either getting somewhere or worrying about being late for something. The entire world seemed to buzz with activity like bees in a hive, always racing around and never quite understanding that life was so relatively short, all the while trying to make more time for things. She had always been a carefree girl, never worrying about being somewhere at a certain time or being slightly behind her friends in life who all seemed to be doing great things with their lives despite them being so young.

Comparison was the thief of joy, her father would tell her.

As she watched her friends move out of family homes and travel miles upon miles for college, she had remained at home with her family, tending the farm and the animals and keeping her family company. The future was not something she worried about that much; she'd get there when she'd get there, and there was no point in fretting the small stuff when she simply wasn't ready to make such a change to her life. She was happy waking up just before dawn and tending to the animals and having the rest of the day to do as she pleased; helping out her father was her favourite thing to do, listening to his stories in his veterinary practice about the cases that stuck with him even if they happened over thirty years ago, and helping out with the new admin system now that everything had become digital. Her father struggled with that concept, but he was grateful for having a young daughter who was able to assist with such confusing technology.

She would return home in her father's jeep and whilst her father went into his study, she would go out and tend to the animals again, ensuring they had everything they needed before she returned inside for the evening. They would cook dinner together, talk about Maggie and Shawn, and have dinner on the table for when her mother would return home from work as a nurse. And they would sit and eat and talk about their day, and then when the sun would set, she would bid her parents a goodnight with a kiss on the cheek and a quiet prayer before heading to bed.

Her mind would often wonder about her friends out there and wonder what they were doing at that time. Were they out partying? Were they studying for an exam? Were they doing assignments? Were they putting things off as much as they could?

For Beth Greene, she was happy.

She was smart, a bookworm and full of life that a decision to solidify her future wasn't an important one for her. Not yet anyway, her father would reassure her. She was shy and naïve, but that was never a bad thing. She just knew what she wanted and being at home was exactly that. She needed time to find out who she truly was, and that was okay with everyone.

But when the dead started walking again, a nightmare seeping into reality, she was never bitter that she hadn't received her chance to shine in the old world. She never regretted not going out into the world and making it her own, she just wasn't as ready as most people. In fact, she felt relief in a strange way. Her father had tried to protect her from that world – a new, startling world – as much as he could, but when her mother was bitten, he knew he couldn't keep up with the reassurances.

Her mind began to race as she laid there on the cold ground, conjuring up scenarios that she knew were not true but yet felt so very real as she slipped in and out of consciousness. She wondered in those blurry moments if it was her subconscious showing her everything that could've happened if the outbreak hadn't occurred and hadn't ripped everything she loved from her grasp.

She was a teacher, a vet, a doctor, in many, all of them changing before her eyes with every blink she made. She was a homemaker in a few, with children with unruly and wild blond hair running and jumping around the farm that she had grown up on. In her mind, Beth knew that the farm had become overrun and the house that had been her home for all of her childhood had burned to the ground. But it was real in her mind, then. And she tried to smile in remembrance to how simple her life had been, to what she was seeing, but her face was numb and heavy, and she couldn't understand why.

Her father was there, except she knew – a small piece of her remembered – that her father was gone. She would never forget what had happened to him; she had seen him that day, a smile on his face as he accepted his death at the hands of a man who bore a sadistic grin and an eye patch. His name was not one she remembered in that moment, but she knew him; he often plagued her dreams.

Maggie, Shawn and her mom were all there, too. And she wondered if this was her time. She understood something had happened, but her voice failed her, and so did the words she was wanting to say. What she didn't know was if she attempted to call out, the words she wanted to say were not the words that would be heard by others.

And so, she laid there.

The floor beneath her was cold, but she was aware of someone else lying on the ground with her. A woman; brown hair tied back from her face, police uniform, her still eyes staring into her soul except they were unseeing; a bullet hole in between her eyes. She blinked, her eyes focussing on the metal glinting just to the left of her. She blinked again, her eyes staring at the scissors that penetrated the neck of the woman.

_BANG—_

She reacted to the noise with a groan, her eyes squeezing shut as pain reverberated through her skull. Her whole body shuddered in shock; her limbs tensing against her will then releasing, her chest became heavy and void of all breath. She opened her eyes again, her gaze immediately falling on the dead woman, and then—

_BANG—_

_BANG—_

Beth flinched, wondering if the loud noises were in her mind or in reality. She couldn't tell as they pushed through the barrier of her muffled hearing. Sharp, intense, almost interrogating noises penetrated her mind as screams and shouting filled the air around her; racing down the winding, dim corridors to where she lay.

When all she wanted to do was to run and hide from the intruders, her body failed her and she allowed her mind to wander off, drifting away from reality for a short while. As she closed her eyes, her mind protecting her from the sounds around her, she saw her father one last time, smiling wide with his smile almost reaching his eyes.

She reached for him but he disappeared right before her eyes, and just like that, like a curtain falling after the main act, her whole world became dark.

. .. .

The bullet had penetrated the left side of her brain from the open wound just under her chin but there was no exit wound. She had been conscious just mere moments afterwards, though the people around her hadn't realised that she was still clinging onto life. There had been no way – _no way – _she would've survived this; she could only imagine they had thought. But she had heard the screams and she knew she was as good as dead; the high-pitched screams were something she had heard before, had stayed with her ever since her father was killed in front of her.

The guttural sobs that emitted from her and Maggie had never been heard from them before, as their innocence was ripped from them. Even in the new world with the death and destruction they witnessed every single day had still not been enough to take their innocence away from them. It had been a way of life, a stark contrast to just how pure and simple life had been for them even when the outbreak tore the whole world apart city by city, state by state, country by country.

Seeing Hershel be killed before her very eyes had stripped her of everything she had once been. She was no longer the soft, naïve girl that the group of people who had come into her life early on in the outbreak were used to; she became emotionally tough, almost bitter. She remembered Daryl Dixon being around her more, the loss of his brother having taught him a huge and important lesson in life.

Those that you loved would eventually leave you, and it was important to have people to fall back on when the grief and pain become too much that it caused the once sturdy ground to crumble beneath the weight of your grief.

She remembered staring at her father's decapitated body, her chest heaving as the sobs escaped her, her body pacing as she didn't know what to do; did she run to him, or just stay behind the gate where she was safe? All she wanted to do was to run to him, hold him close to her, and forget about the danger that surrounded her. That was her father, and he had been cruelly taken away from her by a man tried to harm them relentlessly over the last few months. Daryl had wrapped his strong arms around her then and guided her body to the ground where her nails dug into the dry soil and gathering dying grass in clumps in her hand. The moisture of her tears sunk into the earth, absorbing the moisture instantly. She howled and howled, until all the air in her lungs seemed to dissipate into the air. And still, he held her, his heart beating against her back, calming the storm within her from destroying everything else.

Time had passed by slowly, and yet in an instance, in a blink. The sky had darkened and the crowd of people that had captured her father were all gone, and for a moment, she believed she had imagined them all. Their faces were all blurred, their frames distorted, their voices that once filled the air were now silent.

But she had seen his body, lying there, his head just adjacent to the rest of him. A sobering image for her mind trying its utmost best to protect her from the cruel reality.

She remembered Daryl kneeling beside her, pulling her towards him and lifting her from the ground. He carried her back inside and she simply rested her head in the crook of his neck, warm and safe. Daryl had taken her back to her cell and had laid her down on her bed as gently as he possibly could, and she had reached for his hand. Rough and calloused in her soft and delicate hand, she had ushered for him to stay with her just for a while, and he had, taking a seat beside where she lay. And he stayed there until she woke a few hours later, and he remained there for as long as she needed him to be. He was never too far away from her from that point on. It was a comforting thought knowing he was there, protecting her, and simply keeping her company.

_I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl._

Her eyes fluttered open at her own voice, distant and ethereal. The image of Daryl had burned into her unconscious mind and flickered for a while as she blinked a few times. She laid there for a while longer, trying to gather the strength to pull herself up from the ground, and once she was as prepared as she believed she could be, she rested her hands, flat and open, against the wet floor beneath her and lifted herself up slowly. The weight of her head was devastating but the pain she felt before had numbed much to her relief. It had been an all-consuming pain that she wondered if there would ever be a time – if she survived – where it would ever ease.

Her movements were slow, clumsy and awkward. Her limbs were heavier than she had anticipated them to be, her mind was foggier than she had hoped it would be. Even in the darkness of the corridor, with the flickering security light behind her, she hadn't truly grasped the injuries she had sustained just a mere few hours before.

When she stumbled, she picked herself back up, albeit sluggishly and inelegantly. She would crawl when her feet failed her, but she kept moving, allowing the dancing and lambent lights to lead her.

It was deathly quiet on every corner. But as she reached a certain corridor, closed double doors blocking her from continuing down it, she turned back to face the way she came.

A creak of a door, the cocking of a gun…

"Beth?" she heard a voice behind her, but movement was not her strong point at that moment, and she slowed, hearing the _drip, drip, drip_ of the blood seeping out of the wound under her chin against the floor beneath her.

It was male, familiar in a way that at that moment she couldn't explain. She turned slowly, hearing the intake of breath from him as he waited with bated breath to see the true extent of her injuries. As her eyes met his, she saw panic flash before them; eyes being the window to the soul often gave away the deepest of secrets, and that was true in this distance.

"Beth…" he repeated but more softly this time. "I need you to just come to me, okay? I'm going to get you help, I promise."

Beth Greene nodded at the man, the concern in his eyes being the deciding factor of whether she could trust him or not. He closed the gap between them and held her shoulders protectively as the double doors opened again revealing a woman in scrubs, her demeanour frantic at the mere sight of her.

Beth had seen that look before, as if the woman had truly seen a ghost before her eyes. She remembered having the same look when she was reunited with Daryl; the weeks having passed them by and the worry of whether the other had survived being very much evident in their response to seeing each other again. They had been awkward, hesitant to show their true feelings for one another in front of everyone who knew them, which would be a sure sign to the transition within the group. Friends having become something more in that split second of reuniting with each other. The woman was wheeling a wheelchair to her and the man gently placed her into it, before he knelt down beside her. He inspected her face, her eyes, the wound that was emitting a lot of blood onto her clothing and skin.

"Can you speak?" he asked, but any word that formed in her mind never made it to her mouth and she simply stared back at him. He faltered then, his gaze falling downcast.

Beth could understand, even in her state, that she should've died back there from the way he reacted to her. And she understood that this might be the last time she would ever see another day. She reached for his hand and squeezed it, hoping her eyes would convey her emotion and the words that were failing her in this moment. She knew life and death came hand in hand, and when the odds were stacked against you, you just had to have faith.

And faith was something that never left her.


End file.
